


it's not the way i'm picturing it, no

by piggy09



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 23:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18537937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Caleb doesn't need a braid in her hair to be pretty, because Caleb just is: pretty. She tries to hide it behind dirt and grimy scarves and a coat that’s a size too large so she can hunch in it like a turtle, vanishing; it doesn’t work. Beneath all of that she is still so pretty. Nott only hates her for it sometimes.





	it's not the way i'm picturing it, no

They’ve been members of the Mighty Nein for maybe two weeks when Caleb says to Nott: “Can you braid my hair?”

A quiet voice in their shared room. Caleb usually keeps her voice down, high-pitched, soft. When she speaks in a normal voice it’s lovely, like bells chiming; her accent makes every single syllable sounds crisp and bright.

Nott clears her throat, and in her ugly voice says: “Of course, Caleb.” She pats her side of the bed. Caleb obligingly stands up, circles around the entire bed – instead of just scooting across, which is very like her – and sits next to Nott. Her feet, in their oversized and dirty boots, are planted on the floor like stone pillars.

Nott circles behind Caleb, takes handfuls of dirty copper hair in her claws. “I thought you’d forgotten,” she says. “That I offered.”

“I remembered,” Caleb says, still in that same soft voice. She twists her hands together, picking at the dirt lodged in her cuticles. Nott shouldn’t be surprised that Caleb remembered – Caleb remembers everything, always, and certainly she’d remember that three days after they met Nott said _I can braid your hair to keep it out of your eyes_ and Caleb said _no thank you, I don’t want anyone to get too good a look at my face_ and Nott said _you’re very pretty, though,_ and Caleb said _yes I know, that’s the problem_.

“Your hair is so nice,” Nott says softly. She separates it into three sections, moves them between her spindly jagged digits. Begins to braid.

“Thank you,” says Caleb, her voice distant and muted. “I, ah, you know, I do not wash it that often, maybe I should – now that we are – at some point, maybe. Maybe I will ask Yasha to cut it, she has a sword.”

“That sounds like a _terrible_ idea.”

“Probably it is that, yes.” Caleb shifts her weight from side to side. Her hands are still fidgety.

“Caleb,” Nott says.

“Yes, Nott?”

“Is this really something you want? You seem, ah – well. Miserable, honestly.”

“I don’t know,” Caleb says. “It’s been so long.”

“For me, too,” Nott offers.

“You have done this before? With…with other goblins?”

“I used to braid my own hair,” Nott says softly. “Every day. I thought it would make me prettier, but it didn’t really. I was still me. I just had a braid in my hair.” She pulls in a breath and exhales, breathes out Veth’s ghost from between Nott’s lips. She adds: “Goblin hair doesn’t take too well to braids. It’s too greasy and disgusting.”

“I don’t think your hair is disgusting at all.”

“Oh – wait – what’s this? I found the broken teeth of a comb in your hair…wait, they’re talking to me…they’re saying you have no leg to stand on in this argument whatsoever.”

Caleb laughs. That sound is also pretty, because every sound Caleb makes is pretty, because Caleb is pretty. She tries to hide it behind dirt and grimy scarves and a coat that’s a size too large so she can hunch in it like a turtle, vanishing; it doesn’t work. Beneath all of that she is still so pretty. Nott only hates her for it sometimes.

“It’s true, though,” Caleb says. Nott can hear the smile in her voice. “It’s a very lovely shade of green. It looks like – oh, I don’t know. Brook water. When the sun is out, and the light is flickering – you know?”

“I hate water,” Nott mutters.

“Are you saying that because you hate water, or because you hate your hair that much?”

“Both of them,” Nott says. “Definitely both of them.” She licks her lips, thinks about her flask, keeps all of her fingers in the neat tight braid she’s making in Caleb’s hair.

“I don’t think you’re ugly,” Caleb says, in a soft whisper. Her fingers are twisting in and out of each other like worms in the ground – only worms in the ground that are beautiful, and porcelain, and perfect. An artist’s dream of worms; the dream of someone who has never had to go digging around in the dirt because they’re starving and there’s no more meat.

“And besides,” Caleb says, picking up speed, “even if you are ugly, is that – is that such a bad thing to be, I mean, everyone says that I should be grateful for being pretty but it seems like all it ever gets me is people _staring_ and I hate it when they stare, Nott, I think I would rather be ugly, especially if when you say ugly you mean the way that _you_ look because I would like to be small, and quick, and clever at taking locks apart, and I would like to have hair that looks like water.”

“It doesn’t make them stop staring,” Nott says quietly. “Trust me.” She finishes the braid and holds it in place with one hand; with the other hand she fumbles around in her pocket until she finds a gilt-edged ribbon she’d stolen from – oh, who knows, some noblewoman or another. She ties it in. It’s red and gold, and it clashes horribly with Caleb’s hair. Somehow, despite all of this, Caleb is still pretty.

“Done!” Nott says.

“Really?” Caleb says. She turns her head around to try, stupidly, to stare at her own back; her cornflower eyes watch Nott from her blown-glass face. The cheekbones, the eyelashes. Caleb is everything Veth ever prayed for. Nott only hates her for it sometimes.

“Does it look alright?” Caleb says. She’s already reaching back to fiddle with the frayed hair at the end. Nott whaps her fingers across the back of Caleb’s knuckles before Caleb can stick the end of her braid in her mouth and chew it.

“Don’t you dare eat it,” Nott says. “Also, yes. You look lovely, Caleb. I’m – I’m happy for you, that you want to be lovely. I really am. Also, if _anyone_ stares at you funny, just let me know and I’ll shoot them with my crossbow.”

“I think we are trying _not_ to start fights,” Caleb says. A smile twitches up the corner of her rosebud mouth. She twists the end of the braid back and forth in her hand; the fire-color of it flickers in the inn’s light.

“That doesn’t matter,” Nott says. “If you need a fight started, I will start one. Fuck those other guys, I don’t give a shit about what they want.”

“I’ve never been around this many other women before,” Caleb tells her fiddling fingers. “It’s really – it’s really, ah, nice.” She nibbles on her lower lip and then says, voice even quieter: “It really looks alright? My hair?”

“It looks better than alright,” Nott says. “You’re beautiful. You don’t have to be scared of that, okay?”

Caleb’s mouth twists all around in her face. “Okay,” she says. “I will, I will try. I’m sorry. It sounds so silly when you say it out loud.”

 _It is silly_ , says something stupid and greedy and twisted-up in Nott’s breastbone. _It’s silly and it’s stupid and I’d take it from you if I could, I’d eat it whole, if it meant not being this—_

“It’s not silly,” she says. “It’s okay. You’re okay, Caleb.” She pulls the braid out of Caleb’s hand and tucks it back behind Caleb’s neck again. “You’re going to have to ask someone else if you want makeup done. Maybe Yasha will put it on you with her big sword.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea,” Caleb parrots obediently, and then her face splits open in an eager, earnest smile. Her teeth: white, straight, perfect. Beneath all the grime she is so effervescently lovely.

“It is,” Nott says. “If Yasha gets that sword anywhere _near_ your delicate skin I will shoot her eyes out with my crossbow. Don’t ask Yasha for makeup help unless she puts it on you with fucking feathers or something. I don’t know.”

Caleb is still laughing, helplessly. Her eyes are all squinted up; with her hair pulled back in a braid like this, you can see all the perfect angles of her face. Lovable, that’s the word for it. It’s so easy to love her – or to fall in a stupid, shallow version of love just from looking at her. Nott, who has slept in a bed with Caleb and her terrible nightmares and has pulled Caleb out of a pile of literal shit and has watched Caleb read a book about ancient magical theory and regurgitate it word-for-word over the next five hours, eyes glittering with excitement…Nott finds Caleb lovable too. It’s just in a different way. She looks at Caleb’s perfect teeth and eyes and skin and bones and thinks _if anyone hurts you, I will break them like glass_.

“You are staring,” Caleb says.

“I’m overwhelmed by your many charms,” Nott tells her, reaching out to pat her face. “We should get at _least_ four pigs for your bride-price now.”

“Oh, good,” Caleb says, “as long as I am worth four pigs.” She’s still smiling. She goes back to fiddling with the braid again. “Thank you,” she says, “by the way. Nott. Thank you for—”

“Don’t thank me,” Nott says. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I’m working on it,” Caleb says.

“Then so am I,” Nott says, and she leans her head on Caleb’s shoulder. A tendril of Caleb’s hair slips free from the braid and mixes with Nott’s – like fire and water, like copper and rust.

**Author's Note:**

> Always there to brush your hair  
> Help you pick out what to wear  
> I just feel alone, feel alone  
> You will never understand  
> Even when you hold my hand  
> I just feel alone, feel alone  
> \--"Sleepover," Hayley Kiyoko
> 
> I know this is titled after The Gay Song™, but I still see Nott & Caleb's love as familial. The emotions that fill that song are just a mood.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
